Printers are used in a variety of professional settings for printing text and images on various types of media, such as paper, cardstock, labels, etc. Generally, printers are often installed in areas where they will take up as little real estate as possible.
Although space may be limited, a certain amount of buffer space will be needed around the printers to allow a user to access the interior of the printers when necessary. For example, the user may need to open the enclosure of the printer to reload paper or other media on which the images are printed. Also, the user may need to open the printer to replace a ribbon, toner cartridge, drum, or other printing elements or to perform other normal restocking and maintenance operations. Therefore, this buffer space is needed around the printer for allowing easy access to the interior of the printer and also to accommodate the path of one or more swinging doors or removable trays of the printer.
Since the printer's enclosure doors may be opened on a regular basis and/or the doors may be heavy or difficult to open, the user may decide to remove the doors, which might help to reduce the space needed for the printer and may provide a more convenient way to access the interior of the printer. Also, the user may remove the doors to avoid the risk of an injury due to a door accidentally closing while the user is working inside the printer.
A problem with removing printer doors, however, is that the internal printing mechanisms, such as printer heads, when exposed to the environment, may wear down faster and/or may accumulate dust and dirt. As a result, exposure to the environment may have a negative impact on the print quality or even the life span of the printer.
Therefore, a need exists for a printer, or other similar machine having one or more doors for exposing its interior, to be configured such that the doors can be easily moved out of the way when needed. Also, a need exists for the printer doors to have a low profile and, thus, not require a large buffer space around the printer for swinging the doors opened or closed.